


Survivor's Eyes

by the_most_beautiful_broom



Series: Memori Week [2]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide, and i really needed to write this how it is but please please don't read if you aren't comfortable, okay so basically this takes place during 3x01 so there's some pretty heavy stuff, pls be safe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-30
Updated: 2018-05-30
Packaged: 2019-05-16 00:26:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14800824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_most_beautiful_broom/pseuds/the_most_beautiful_broom
Summary: Memori Appreciation Week: Day Two: Missing SceneAfter three months, Murphy hallucinates Emori in the lighthouse.He blinked, his eyes finding hers, seeking hers, searching hers. In them, he read a thousand stories: windy nights and sandy water, years of taunts and mockery, years of prejudice, years of deliberate laughter and growling stomachs and slashing knives, all mottled together in the amber of her eyes.Survivor’s eyes.Like his.And when she saw understanding flash, Emori smiled, a soft sight that was the closest to heaven he knew he’d ever get. She smiled like she believed in him, like she believed for him, like there was something worth believing at all. Like she’d been waiting for him and now she didn’t have to, and she was ready to run.





	Survivor's Eyes

**Author's Note:**

> the missing scene is from 3x01, in the lighthouse. this is way heavier than i planned for it to be, but the story just needed to be told, and long story short, i had to write it this way. however, as important as this story was for me to tell, your health is more important so please check the tags before you go any further ♥

Clarke could probably tell him if he’d broken his shoulder or just dislocated it when he threw the lamp, then the table, then his body, against the containment door, but that didn’t help Murphy at all, because he wasn’t going to see her again.

And Monty could probably tell him what kind of liquor he was drowning himself in, Bellamy would salivate at the sight of the antique pistol, and Jasper could cook up a concoction to blow the doors wide open.

But they were across the desert, outside and breathing actual air, and he was going to rot in here, slowly going insane.

He couldn’t tell which was worse, the resounding silence, or the voices on the screen. He’d had them memorized two months ago.

Becca amused; Alie sincere.

Becca condescending; Alie undeterred.

“Too many people,” Alie said.

“Too many people,” Becca said.

“Too many people,” Murphy said, wondering if his voice was any more real than theirs. It scratched coming out of his throat, tasted rancid in his mouth, but that could be the alcohol, or the last of his food, rotting.  

“Ah,” he glared at the screen, bitterness thick on his voice, “you certainly took care of that, didn’t you?”

Alie blinked and Becca blinked and Murphy suddenly couldn’t stand the sight of long lashes and almond eyes that remembered what the sun looked like.

Maybe he yelled and maybe he only sighed, but the screen shattered into fragments as he threw an empty bottle at it.

Twenty minutes later, he was on his knees, cutting his hands on the shards, trying to fit them back together again because the whispers in his head were too loud to bear alone.

The next thing he held was the camcorder, heavy at the end of his arm, little lens opening and closing as it focused on his face.

“Eight-six days,” he said, clenched through his teeth, willing the wetness in his eyes to clear so he could focus. Dignity was long gone, hope too, but not lucidity. He looked away, clearing his throat slightly. “I’m on my, um, last box of food so...”

And what more was there to say?

He looked back at the screen, shattered and dark, the white of the glass against the black behind it reminding him of a different view, from a lifetime ago, and a smile devoid of any semblance of happiness ghosted across his face.

“Really never thought I’d miss the Ark this much, but...”

The ark? Where he’d killed his father and his mother and then his people had killed him. Or tried to. He’d been beaten by his teacher, hanged, tortured by grounders, treated as less than cattle, racked with disease. He’d crossed an atmosphere, an ocean, a desert, and now a door was what killed this survivor.

His gaze snapped back to the camera.

“Anyways, Jaha,” he seethed, since anger was easier than regret, and his tight smile was back, feeling wrong and right, “if you’re seeing this, that would indeed mean you’re not dead, so screw you.”

And he meant to say it calmly, but the next thing he knew he was shaking, the camera inches from his face. He pulled it back and felt something wet on his face, tears like rain or blood, and he closed the camera, dropping it and not caring where it landed. This bunker has a history of killing men, so the next son of a bitch who’d sit here would be too late for a warning.  

He hated that this was what he’d become.

That this was what he’d been driven to, that starvation was going to kill what radiation and evolution could not. The ground had never been a forgiving place, and especially never to him, but this was something else entirely.

When the rope was around his neck, he’d looked Connor and Myles and Bellamy in the eye.

He’d survived.  

When the grounders had pulled off his nails, when he told them everything they wanted to know, when they asked him why he wouldn’t die, he’d laughed.

He’d survived.

When mines exploded around him, when monsters pulled others into a watery grave, when acid fog burned his skin, he’d set his shoulders and kept going.

He’d survived.

But not now. Now, walls built to keep an apocalypse at bay were suffocating him, and surviving didn’t mean more life, it meant a longer death.

He’d rather go out with a bullet through his skull than with swollen entrails, picking crumbs off the floor of this fucking asylum.  

The gun was cold but it felt like something other than useless waiting, so he fit it under his chin, pressing it into the cleft under his jaw.  

Cocked it.

Let out a breath, hissed it through his teeth. He never thought it would end like this, but if he had a choice, he was going out on his terms. Float everything else. He counted down from three.

_Three…_

Would he see his dad again? Would his face be like it was when he was alive, or like the image burned in his memory: frozen as space consumed him? Would he smile, would he call him son? Or would he frown and ask him how he let his mother die?

_...Two..._

Or maybe there wouldn’t be anything at all? Would there be fire or would there be peace or would there be—

“Put the gun down, John.”

It was a calm voice, and it wasn’t his.

He blinked; his blurry eyes cleared and he saw a figure in front of him, leaning against the wall. Her brown eyes were sharp, her hair hidden under the turban, and her left hand tucked behind her, but for the casualness of her stance, there’s an undeniable urgency in her air.

“Put it down,” Emori said, and John’s fingers trembled.

She couldn’t be here; it wasn’t possible. She’d left him in the desert, her breath burning his neck as she whispered the way out of the sand.

“You’re not real,” he said warily, even as he swiped his hand at his face, feeling the wetness there. Real or not real, he didn’t like that she was seeing him with tears staining his cheeks.

“If you’re expecting something trite about the relativity of reality,” she sighed, pushing off the wall and walking slowly towards him, “I’m not the right girl.”

“That’s unlikely,” he huffed, the words slipping out.

Emori stopped a couple feet in front of him, her head tilting to the side. “What does that mean?”

And since he figured he was as close to having nothing left to lose as he’d ever be, Murphy shrugged. Now that he was thinking about it, it sounded stupid to say, but he still thought he might as well. “You’re probably the most _right_ thing to happen to me in as long as I can remember,” he mumbled.

Emori’s mouth didn’t move, but her eyes smiled for her. “Unfortunate,” she said drily, after a long pause, “Since I’m pretty sure we haven’t known each other for long enough for anything to happen.”

“Maybe not this time around.”

He didn’t know where the thought came from, but it made sense. The way they’d been drawn to each other, even in spite of the initial hostility. How he hadn’t thought for a moment before handing over his water, how she’d shown him the most vulnerable part of her.

Emori nodded slowly, like that made sense. Like souls were stardust and maybe their supernovas had been adjacent, and something of her was mixed into his blood. Like they were inevitable, eternal, and this wasn't the first time she'd met him like this, in a pane that wasn't quite reality.

She moved, and the motion surprised him; she finished her path across the room and knelt in front of the couch, in front of him and Murphy could swear she was real. He could smell the sunshine on her hair, feel the warmth of her skin, alive, radiating towards him. There was a warm glow on her cheeks, and if he listened, he can hear her heartbeat, steady, strong.  

“Yours is too,” she said, softly, and it took a moment for him to process what she meant.

“No,” he said, already shaking his head, and she clicked her tongue.

“You think I’d lie to you?”

And what else was he supposed to do, than laugh, a strange and unfamiliar sound to him when it wasn’t coating despair. She seemed to relish it though, leaning towards him slightly, the corners of her mouth finally, finally, twitching upward.

“I’m not lying,” she said, and he thought it was with a shrug but then her hand was coming up. Her eyes flicked to his, but then her hand settled oh his wrist, above his throat. Her fingers gentle, she felt around the inside of his palm, settling on his pulse. He felt her hands, felt her presence, felt her touch like she was touching the vein itself, pouring strength into him.  

“See,” she said, her fingers on his pulse and her breath ghosting over him, “strong.”

But if her hands were warm, they were scalding compared to the metal just next to her fingers. Emori didn’t falter, wasn’t afraid of it, of him, and held her hands there, waiting.

But he couldn’t touch her.

Something like panic washed over him, and he couldn’t look down at his arms, couldn’t move anything, couldn’t understand why he couldn’t reach for her. And when he looked back to her, her dark eyes were misty, and her lashes fluttered slightly.

“Don’t you understand?” she whispered, and he wanted to, oh how he wanted to. In the months since the Dead Zone, he'd run through their interactions thousands of times. Thought of what he should've said that he didn't, and did say that he shouldn't have. And he could say it now, but he still didn't have the words, and he thought that maybe he could tell her, if he could just reach her, clutch her hand the way he should’ve in the desert.

Emori let out a soft sigh. “You can’t hold both, John.”

He blinked, his eyes finding hers, seeking hers, searching hers. In them, he read a thousand stories: windy nights and sandy water, years of taunts and mockery, years of prejudice, years of deliberate laughter and growling stomachs and slashing knives, all mottled together in the amber of her eyes.

Survivor’s eyes.

Like his.

And when she saw understanding flash, Emori smiled, a soft sight that was the closest to heaven he knew he’d ever get. She smiled like she believed in him, like she believed for him, like there was something worth believing at all. Like she’d been waiting for him and now she didn’t have to, and she was ready to run.

He was blinded by it.

That must’ve been what happened, because in that moment, her smile glowed too bright, then it began to fade. And her hair was already translucent, melting into the dark of the room, fading like smoke, like a dream.

He couldn’t feel her hand on his wrist anymore.

The steady pressure was gone, the gentle touch and the strength she’d lent him, seeping away as she faded.

“No,” he broke off, hating the crack on his voice, “Don’t go. Please don’t go.”

Her eyes were still full of the universe, but Emori’s smile was gone, faded, but he could see her shaking her head. “We’re all on borrowed time, John.”

“I thought you said you weren’t gonna give me pithy phrases,” he said, panic fighting with gentle teasing in his voice.

“And I,” Emori’s voice seemed to waver, echo, lift as she drifted away, “thought you said I was the right girl.”

“You are,” he said hastily, willing himself or her to stay or anything to keep her with him, “You are, you are, I promise.”

“Then just let go, John.”

And when he blinked, shaking his head to clear away the haze around him, all he could see of her was her piercing eyes.

Kind eyes, strong eyes, deep eyes, soft eyes. Smiling, hopeful, waiting. And then she was gone, a wisp of wind, a phantom, a mirage. An angel.

And then.

Her voice, clear as day, echoed around the room, through his bones, piercing his heart.

“You can't hold us both, John.”

_...One._

The room was empty.

Hollow, lonely, quiet, the only sound his haggard breathing.

He dropped the gun.

It fell from his fingers, clattering to the floor, and his hands clenched around empty air. He leaned his face into his hands, breathing hard, shaking. Pressed them against his forehead, blood poudning through his ears, behind his eyes.

Raging, roaring, beating.

Strong.

She’d been right, of course she had; this was who he was. He fought, every inch, every breath, every moment, he fought. He was stronger. He survived.

 _There you go_ , he could almost hear a low voice saying, _told you I wouldn’t lie_.

He lowered his hands, resting them on his knees, trying to avoid the thought of next. Next steps, next meal, next plan, next—

The seal broke.

For a moment, he thought the hallucination was back, that it was another concoction of his mind. But then there was the sound of heavy iron, swinging on hinges, and an electronic voice and a pristine message: **containment door released**.

Released.

He barely dared to breathe, dared to hope, since the last thing he’d trusted had vanished into thin air, but he was tripping over himself, crawling and climbing up the stairs and there was light at the top.

The doors opened when he pushed them.

Hissed open with a mechanic wheeze, swinging back and then there was sunlight on his face. And grass under his feet. And a lake before his eyes and leaves above his head and it was all too bright, too real, too alive for him to understand.

There was a drone buzzing above him.

Logic said the drone had opened the doors, or the one who operated it had. Reason said that a timer had activated, that there was an explanation. But his heart...his heart said that fingers like  feathers had grazed over the seal, brown eyes had defied the locks and stared them into submission; that the angel who’d felt his pulse had released him from his grave, and it was only a matter of time before he found her again.


End file.
